Long distance
November 23, 2009
Cooking dinner had filled the tiny apartment with the garlic and the grease and the bay and the other lingering, hissing smells. He was eating at the old surgeon's desk, pushed up against the wall right next to the front door, heavy and clanking with a dreary green paint hiding the rust flakes and the deep scratches. The light came down dark yellow through the smoke that still hung in the air, casting more shadows than light.
The silverware made loud scraping noises in the ceramic bowl, and sharp, tinny chirps when he set it down on that old surgeon's desk. He was chewing methodically, with some unnatural determination and focus, as if counting silently in his head. After dinner, the dishes went into the aluminum sink with the faucet looking loose and fragile like a sick goose's neck. The front door was opened, and the smoke alarm was plugged back in - the yellow wires snapping onto its underbelly, and then the whole little apparatus twisted into place on its ceiling mount. There were some bar stools on the floor; the legs were cut short and the brown upholstery stretched over the seat and the high back, looking slick and cheap with spots worn through here and there. Sitting in one of the brown stools, he looked towards the window for a moment, then two. Minutes passed. On a little black phone he pulled from his pocket he typed out the message, suddenly:
How was work?
He hit Send, and then the phone was back in his pocket. With a quick twist of the handle the kitchen faucet splashed alive, droplets of water spreading all over the counter and ricocheting down to the floor messily. The dish soap was slippery and orange, smelling something like plastic orange and squirming slyly between his fingers. First pots and pans, then a bowl and a plate, and then two glasses. Each dish was set out to dry on a worn brown towel beneath a cheap plastic dish rack. The towel soaked through and water seeped into the already buckling particle board. The phone buzzed green in his pocket and then his hand, reading:
I'm out with people. Call you later?
He punched OK onto the keypad, pressed Send and then slipped it back into his pocket. The beer poured easily and light golden into a freshly washed cup. In a moment he was outside, the air thick and humid and the sky gray and darkening. He produced a cigarette from a pants pocket and smoked it slow, blowing the smoke across the lit end so that it glowed orange in the failing light. The burnt dusk in the sky fell crawling, drooping behind the gray green trees and then sinking behind the earth itself. After finishing the first beer, he was back in through the open door, ducking into the shadowy yellow light for a moment and then returning with a full glass. Another cigarette was lit; the smoke drifting up slow into the wet air.
He pulled the black phone from his pocket, looked at its luminescent green display, and then put it back. A spider crawled slow down the banister outside of his door. It let itself straight down from the roof on a slick length of web as if repelling, then, reversing completely, crawled straight back up its released web with frantic, clawing legs. It paused and cringed when dull, thin tobacco smoke drifted lazily over it, then jerked back to life with its frantic, clumsy limbs.
When the second beer was gone, another was retrieved. Again, he ducked into the low, yellow light and came back to sit in the same chair, gazing over the banister at the darkness in the trees. He smoked like he ate, looking slow and deliberate, as if counting something silently. In time, falling and climbing then falling and climbing again, the spider had begun to twist and craft its web into a spiral spanning the corner where a support beam intersected the frame of the roof.
The yellow light of the little apartment came out bright now, spilling down on the wooden planks of the second-story patio and forming a skewed square framed up by the shadow cast from that simple little door. He crushed his cigarette suddenly in a ceramic dish lying on the wooden planks of the patio, and went inside. When he came back out he was holding a book which he opened and thumbed through resolutely until he decided on a page, and, sitting so that the yellow light from the door and the window slanted across his lap, started tracking sentences with his finger.
After a few moments he looked up, and was lost gazing at that spider that was so determined in its task. He turned back to the book with stale enthusiasm once and then twice, but eventually closed it, and setting it down on the ground, stared off where the trees had melted into the gray unknown of night. After drinking another beer, he went inside and closed the door. The blinds came tumbling down and the spider was alone outside with the rest of the world. Its web was complete, and it sat waiting, shaking just perceptibly in the wind. The ash tray grew cold.
Inside, he peeled off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. The little black phone had been still and silent; he looked at it just the same, opening the display and pressing the glowing buttons, then, finally, closing it again. The yellow light was cut off, and the room became thick with a cloudy, sudden darkness. He lay on his stomach on a mattress with two thin sheets spread over it, and held the phone to his chest with his left arm tucked under him like a wing. His head rest on his right arm, and his open eyes focused intently on the wall, waiting for the thin, grainy light that grows slowly in the darkness.The refrigerator's compressor switched on, and a rattling hum swelled into the room. He lay there still, with that hum washing over him, then slowly closed his eyes. The refrigerator hummed slow and steady, and the silver light of the moon played soft through the window on the thin sheets.
Several minutes later, the compressor cut off and rattled to a steady silence with a soft click. His eyes opened. Once more, he pulled the phone from beneath him and looked at its face with its green light splashing back on his resigned features. He pushed the phone back under his chest, breathed deep, and focused his eyes on the gray light dancing in slow motion on the scratch and bump of the plaster wall.
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